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"I have appeared to you for this purpose . . ." -
Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional
experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him.
And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).
Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or
subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the
Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you
that you should go . . .” (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what
Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be “disobedient to the
heavenly vision”—not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give
mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that
the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have
the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message
or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering
relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling “. . . to
make you a minister and a witness . . . .” There would be nothing there without
a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was
absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else.
“For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him
crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
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